MONday, APRIL 28, 2003
Aging gracefully not all that easy
I'm afraid I'm not aging gracefully.
When I was younger, I assumed that age would bring maturity. I figured that once I was 20 ... or 30 ... or 40 ... or some such future age, I would put away childish things and (drum roll, please) become An Adult.
I've got news for you. I'm well past 20, 30 and 40. In fact, I'm on the far side of 50 and I still don't feel any more like an adult than I did when I dreamed of being one.
That's probably a slight exaggeration. In some ways, I'm a lot more responsible now than I was when I was younger. My first real office job - inputting data into computers for the Social Security Administration - was one I hated so much I used my vacation time and sick days as soon as I earned them.
If I had worked there more than 14 months, I would never have been able to take a vacation longer than a three-day weekend (four if I worked it around a national holiday). That's not very mature.
I still take days off when I don't feel like working, but I don't do it as often. Besides, I've worked at my job long enough that I get four weeks vacation annually instead of two.
That's the main reason I'll be able to spend the better part of two weeks in Italy next month.
When I was younger, I used to make up nicknames for almost everyone I knew. I always said there were two kinds of people in the world - those who give nicknames and those who get them. Of course, there's a third kind - folks who are too mature to have anything to do with them.
I don't do that as much as I used to, but I still call my friend Mitch by some of the old ones and I've tagged a bald-headed, relatively quiet guy at work with "Henry," after the old comic strip.
I still dress pretty much the same way I always did. The Bob Greene style - shirt unbuttoned at the collar and tie tugged down for work. At home, it's jeans or shorts along with T-shirts or golf shirts.
My musical tastes haven't changed much. If anything, they're frozen in time. I can't think of an artist who began performing after 1980 whose work I enjoy. That said, I still think Bruce Springsteen is the Boss, the Eagles soar and Jimmy Buffett makes the best feel-good music around.
When I had a few hours of yard work to do Sunday, I loaded three CDs of '70s hits into the stereo, cranked it up loud and danced around the garden to "Heartbeat (It's a Love Beat)," "My Baby Loves Lovin'" and a few dozen other songs the music world has forgotten.
Thankfully, my kids weren't home. Nothing tops bad '70s pop music, but they don't agree. If they were home, we would either be listening to great jazz (Virgile) or modern rock (Pauline).
" ... listen to my love sound, listen to my heart pound."
Whatever happened to the DeFranco family, the poor man's version of the Partridge Family, who were themselves the poor man's version of the Cowsills? Actually, it's a little-known fact that most of the musicians and backing vocalists for the DeFranco Family were the same ones used by the Partridges.
See what you learn from reading these columns? All sorts of useless information to clutter up your head. And by the way, if you don't have "Heartbeat (It's a Love Beat)" running through your head right now, you're aging a lot more gracefully than I am.
When I was younger, I ogled women in their teens and twenties. I did see a few in their thirties worth a few fantasies, but except for my unhappily married friend Joan Morrison in 1978, I never imagined myself interested in a woman on the other side of 40.
I have matured a little in that respect. I never had a chance to date the lovely, sexy Joan - my own first marriage was still staggering toward the finish line - but I'm married to a woman well past 40 and I find my lovely wife very sexy. Of course, she is French.
That doesn't mean I don't notice younger women. I'm not at all attracted to the current crop of anorexics - the Sarah Jessica Parker types one wit called "boys with breasts" - but lately I find myself thinking a lot about a 15-year-old I once knew.
EDITOR'S NOTE: You sick bastard.
Hold on now. She was 15 when I was dating her in 1967 and 1968. I haven't seen her since, but I believe that would make her either 50 or 51.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Oh, you mean ...
Yeah, her. The old Frankie Valli "My Eyes Adored You" girl. The one I never laid a hand on. For some reason, I find myself thinking about what she's doing these days.
EDITOR'S NOTE: Aside from being middle-aged, married and a doctor?
Hey, I'm middle-aged, married and ...
EDITOR'S NOTE: about as close to being a doctor as I am to being Osama bin Laden.
Don't remind me. Anyway, I'm very happily married. Any thoughts about being 18 again are just middle-aged reveries. I enjoy remembering the days before my get-up-and-go got up and went.
It's funny, though. Our kids can't imagine that we were ever young, yet I'm sure there are a lot more people like me, people who still think about basically the same things they did when they were young.
I remember asking my mother once when the time came that you felt different inside. She told me you never do. Oh, your muscles ache a little more, and you can't do all the same things physically that you did when you were 15. But you don't actually feel old - or even middle-aged. There's still that young person somewhere inside.
In a way, I hope that's true. I wouldn't mind still feeling young when I'm 75 or 80. I certainly wouldn't want to turn into a grumpy, "you kids get off my lawn," type of old man.
I hope there are some changes, though. If I'm still dancing around my garden at that age, I'll have to keep an eye out for my children - and my grandchildren.
They'll never understand.
